John Baugh, who died Monday at 91, was the founder of Sysco, the restaurant supply giant whose products are used across the nation.

A public company since 1970, when Baugh cobbled it together from nine independent food suppliers, Sysco Corp. grew quickly as Americans began eating out in record numbers in recent decades. The corporation had $34 billion in sales for 2006 and offers more than 300,000 products, covering virtually every facet of restaurant and facilities management.

Born February 29, 1916, Baugh was a grocery man from the start, getting his first job at age 13 at the local A&P in his hometown of Waco, Texas. In 1946, he and his wife, Eula Mae, founded Zero Foods to distribute frozen foods to restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, fast food stores, and grocery chains.

“I became fascinated with frozen foods,” Baugh told the Houston Chronicle in 1998. “Incidentally, I remain fascinated with frozen foods. To be able to harvest something at the peak of perfection and suspend it in that perfect condition for several years is truly amazing.”

Baugh’s timing was excellent. During World War II, women had become an important presence in the workplace. The demand for restaurants and frozen food was beginning to grow, although it would not truly explode for a decade or more.

At Zero Foods, Baugh made sales calls and handled the deliveries, mainly to cafeterias, bakeries, and hospitals. Eula Mae kept the books. The company grew quickly.

“By 1952, our business had already become an amazing success,” he told the Chronicle. “Honestly, I was a little embarrassed by it. So we gave shares in the company to our employees, including secretaries.”

In 1966, Baugh initiated discussions with eight other regional restaurant distributors around the nation. After the merger in 1969, Baugh served as chairman, but the regional operators retained a large measure of autonomy. (Sysco stands for Systems and Services Company.)

Baugh oversaw Sysco’s initial public offering in 1970 and remained in charge of day-to-day operations until 1985. By 1988, the company was the premier distributor in the country, according to Datamonitor Plc., which tracks industries.

In 1988, Baugh received the Herbert Hoover Award from the National-American Wholesale Grocers Association and later was the first person to be inducted into the National Frozen Food Association’s Hall of Fame.

In 1998, when Baugh retired as senior chairman of the corporation, Sysco had more than $15 billion in sales, up from $115 million its first year, three decades earlier.

Despite having never attended college, Baugh gave more than $25 million to Baylor University and was the school’s biggest donor. He was also an important force in moderate Baptist circles and last year founded the Baptist Convention of the Americas as an alternative to the Southern Baptist Conference, which he felt was becoming dominated by fundamentalists.